


Constellations

by encyclopediaofstrange



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Scars, mentions of self harm, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:00:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25332067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/encyclopediaofstrange/pseuds/encyclopediaofstrange
Summary: They weren't special.Not in the way the others were, anyway. They weren't the heroes that destiny had endowed with special gifts. They didn't have superpowers or any sort of enhancements, supernatural or otherwise. Yet, their bodies were still scarred with constellations of stories.Then again, perhaps it was that way because they were ordinary.
Relationships: Xander Harris/Dawn Summers
Comments: 5
Kudos: 18





	Constellations

**Author's Note:**

> Can't believe I'm writing this in the grand year of 2020, but stranger things have happened and I felt inspired. 
> 
> POSSIBLE TRIGGER WARNING: mentions of self-harm.

They weren't special. 

Not in the way the others were, anyway. They weren't the heroes that destiny had endowed with special gifts. They didn't have superpowers or any sort of enhancements, supernatural or otherwise. Yet, their bodies were still scarred with constellations of stories.

Then again, perhaps it was that way _because_ they were ordinary.

Sometimes when they laid in bed after long and trying days they would find themselves absently tracing the faded outlines as they held each other and just talked.

Sometimes in the mornings or late at night Dawn would simply lay with her face inches from his and let her gentle fingers smooth over the marred remnants of what used to be an eye. She would brush her thumb softly over it and sometimes even take his face and plant gentle kisses along his brow line.

Somehow, without words she always managed to convey exactly what she wanted to, exactly what he needed to hear; though she wished she could fix it all like he would fix a broken window, he was still precious to her just the way he was. To her, he was still _him_ and no amount of damage could change that.

It made him feel just a little bit better each time, like it wasn't something he had to perpetually be ashamed of. Her love chipped steadily and persistently away at his insecurities and self-consciousness. He didn't sleep with the eyepatch anymore, not like he used to. He was still afraid of letting others see it, see him as he truly was, but not her. Never her.

He knew he could show her all the little corners of his self and she wouldn't judge him. She understood him far better than even Buffy or Willow ever had because she knew what it was like to be him. To be taken for granted or overlooked or just plain forgotten.

He had other scars too. Lots of them. A life spent with tools and hammers and nails and machinery will do that anyway. But when you factor in the... _extracurricular_ activities that had been apart of his world for what seemed like a lifetime, they added up quickly.

He was painted with the marks of swords and knives and hammers and saw nicks alike. His hands were not pretty and his skin was damaged and despite the sometimes goofy exterior, his soul was weathered and worn. But she didn't seem to mind. He supposed that was because it wasn't as if she was an untouched canvas either.

One does not grow up around slayers and witches and demons and vampires and come out completely unscathed. There were cuts, claw marks, gashes and places where all manner of sharp things had caught skin. Areas where jagged edges and rocks scraped and bit in and never left the spot quite the same.

There were _other ones_ too, smaller ones that streaked across her forearms. They were barely visible now, but still there, forever serving as a reminder. They were not like the others, though Xander would often find himself wishing they were. These were the ones that were inflicted by her own hand. Born in an act of desperation to prove to herself that she was real and _alive_ and not just a construct of other people's memories and imaginations.

Sometimes he would gently press his lips to them and trail a line of kisses along their length. There was a part of him that hoped that maybe if he kissed them enough, they'd disappear and take with them the pain and fear that he knew still lingered in the back of her mind.

Yet still, there were other scars on her he found just as unnerving.

Like his eye, they were defining marks, puffy white lines that had left her permanently changed, inside and out. Places where the tip of a knife had been dragged across flesh, wielded with the clear intent to hurt and prolong the process as much as possible. They trailed across her stomach like lines drawn in the sand. Sometimes they looked angry, but mostly they were just there, reminding them both of moments and realities they wished they could forget.

Sometimes when his hand brushed against them or when he held her at night and lightly traced them, he would feel a silent fire burn within him. His soul would lurch at the realization that, had others not intervened, they would have kept cutting and cutting until there was nothing left and no more blood to bleed.

It was usually then that he closed his eye and held her just a little bit tighter, silently grateful that somehow, they had both survived all their scars. Despite all the odds and the strangeness of their lives and the damage that had been done, they both existed in the same place and time.

They had been granted a long enough life to find each other. They were together and they were alive, and sometimes he had to reassure himself of that. And when he did he always concluded that, really, he couldn't ask for anything more.

He was _happy_ , he realized one day with a start, Dawn sitting across the table and teasing him over breakfast. He felt happy. Content. Secure. For the first time in a long time, he felt like he really had a home. With that contentment came a lingering fear, a realization that if he really had something, something _good_ , it could so easily be taken away.

_What if the world ended again?_

_What if they didn't survive their next round of scars?_

_What if what if what if—_

Just as he felt his thoughts begin to spiral, she reached across the table and softly but firmly took his hand, tethering him back to this world. Her touch and the gentle look in her eyes was like a soothing balm, banishing away the thoughts and the fears that plagued him in a way he had never quite been able to admit to anybody else. (For not all scars were physical.)

He met her gaze and allowed himself to get lost in her vibrant eyes, knowing in his heart that if they had made it this far, they could make it through whatever else life had to throw at them.


End file.
